The Magic of Place
My latest album, Meadowlark, is an ode to my New Mexico home, and explores my spiritual and emotional relationship with what, to me, is a deeply sacred place. It is a celebration of Nature, and our interrelationship with land, with locality, and with the spirit of place.
For Pagans, all land is sacred. Regardless of whether we have generation upon generation of indigenous connection to a
locality, or, like me, are a newcomer to the land, we can consciously forge a relationship with Earth as goddess, as Gaia, from wherever we find ourselves on this incredible planet. And as I’ve discovered since moving here three years ago, for me, one of those places of deep relationship is our home, Meadowlark. Here’s the title track of the album:
Finding Home
I’m originally from Melbourne, Australia, but since first visiting New Mexico back in 2001 I knew that there was something about this land that deeply resonated with me. I’d make a point of returning each year, building connections, forging friendships, performing concerts, and immersing myself in the landscape.
Why is it that some places resonate more strongly for us than others? Why is it the desert for me and not the tropics? Why the rivers and not the sea? Maybe it’s an ancestral thing? Maybe past life? Or maybe astrological?
I’ve explored my Relocated Astrological chart for this location and it’s certainly a much easier flow than my actual birth chart! Is that what drew me here, to this rather obscure town on the edge of nowhere? Somehow, deep in our hearts, in our bones, we know when we’ve found a place that truly amplifies our Magic, that harmonies with our Soul.
Like many of us in the global Pagan community, I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider – not able to fit into mainstream culture, but also not quite fully part of any one particular subculture. I’m a liminal being, not quite one thing nor another.
I’ve never been initiated into one particular branch of Paganism or Witchcraft. I connect with dozens of magical and spiritual communities throughout the world, but am not a full time member of any of them.
Likewise. my music doesn’t fit into any genre. I’m goth and folk and pop and rock and cabaret and opera! I’m none of these things and all of them. Although I love this liminality, this betwixt and between, it means that I sometimes feel isolated, like I don’t know where I belong.
The same applies to place. I’m a natural traveler, and have spent the last couple of decades traveling all over the world. But even in some of my favourite places, like Greece, I still feel like an outsider. ( I reference this feeling in my song Home, from my Black Snake album which came out in 2014 and which you can listen to here:
But each time I visited New Mexico, I always got that sense of ‘yes, right here’. How magically fortuitous, then, to find out that my husband Timothy, who I had met in Oregon in 2007, was originally from New Mexico! After navigating the necessary bureaucracy, I relocated from Melbourne to Santa Fe, where we lived for about 6 years before finding our forever home an hour up the highway, in the big expansive High Desert countryside, surrounded by Nature.
A Place for Music, Magic and Ritual
Our lovely Victorian home sits high on a hill, a few miles outside of the small High-Desert town of Las Vegas NM (no, not the big famous city!), on 4 1/2 acres of high-desert Juniper woodland, overlooking farmland, mountains and prairie.
During our first year here I created a a Sacred Ritual Circle, installed a maypole, and made pathways and sacred groves on the land, weaving my own Magic with that of Nature. Now I love to invite community here for all-inclusive seasonal magical retreats, so others can immerse themselves in this powerful land. Meadowlark is becoming a haven, not just for me, but for a broader magical community.
About the Songs
Connection with Nature is at the core of my spiritual practice. After the epic mythic journey of my last album, Persephone, I felt that I needed to emerge from the Underworld, come up for air, and embrace the powerful Magic of my immediate environment. I needed, for a while at least, to move away from the conceptual and embrace the experiential. At Meadowlark, with its beautiful views and clear horizons, I could witness the turning of the seasons and the stars. I could wander the land and notice the details; the wildflowers, trees, birds and animals. Being immersed in the gorgeous New Mexico Nature was so healing and inspiring, and I began to write songs in honour of my home.
One of the first that I wrote is Whatever is Big, Whatever is Small, which explores witnessing Nature as an act of devotion. You can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/jnW7_idi1FI?si=XEPZIR73Q89n-JAx .
Another, First Light, is simply a painting in the form of a song, witnessing dawn here at Meadowlark: https://
youtu.be/MfR8gukDwfY?si=H1rwz6yRX8fraCpb .
In letting the land speak to me, I opened myself to receiving messages and omens from Spirit. I believe that Nature is always talking to us, and we just need to slow down and tune in to receive those messages. My song Rattlesnake, written on one of my hikes in the nearby Nature Refuge, explores this theme: https://youtu.be/lZUXipkKVvY?si=bm3pZEbmXZ9FXRTj
The Music Itself
For those who are familiar with my previous albums, Meadowlark may seem like quite a departure from my usual sound! It’s dreamy, tender, folky, and in many ways quite stripped back. I needed to come back to my centre, to the heart of what I do: sing, write songs, and connect with the Magic of Nature. This is also an unusual album in that I collaborated with my son Reuben (a fine musician in his own right), who created gorgeous, dreamy textures with guitar, cello, synth, bass, and theremin for half the album. The other half was brought to life by Carisa and Andrew from the L.A. based gothic dream wave band Night Tongue.
And I was blessed to have my dear friend and long-time collaborator Rachel Samuel record her cello for one song, A Thousand Ways To Start A Fire. Here’s a link to that song, which I wrote in Greece when I was trying to rediscover my
creative spark after Persephone. As soon as I wrote this song and returned home, all the other Meadowlark songs came through. I guess that’s the way of creativity – you just need that one initial spark. You can listen to the album
version here: https://youtu.be/Pg0q3uczG7A?si=UkjGQ0RXL-PypLQ6 .
And here’s a live video that I made on the day that I wrote the song.
Stay Connected
If you’d like to know more about my music and Meadowlark retreats, head to my website www.wendyrule.com, where you can join my newsletter. And you can find Meadowlark here on my Bandcamp page https://wendyrule.bandcamp.com/ album/meadowlark .
Love and Magic,
Wendy
For more information about Wendy Rule, including her collected articles here on Pagan Song, her bio, and more links to Wendy’s sites on the web, check out Wendy’s page here on Pagan Song.
photos by Karen Kuehn
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